Parts of Antarctica are thawing so quickly, the continent has become “ground zero of global climate change without a doubt,” Harvard geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica told AP.

The Antarctic Peninsula, including the vulnerable West Antarctic ice sheet, is the region of the continent warming fastest because the land juts out in the warmer ocean. According to NASA, it is losing 49

billion tons of ice each year.

And why does that matter?

Because, as the AP declares: “The world’s fate hangs on the question of how fast the ice melts.”

“[I]f all the West Antarctic ice sheet that’s connected to water melts unstoppably, as several experts predict, there will not be time to prepare,” explain AP journalists Luis Andres Henao and Seth Borenstein.